Sure if you’re a big enterprise you need to have on-site and off-site storage with state of the art power supplies, backup power generators, air cooling and banks of 50-inch monitors and security systems. These facilities are essential so that you can monitor system down-time and cope when a cleaner decides to unplug a server to do some hoovering – saving you from having to stare at a blank screen for two minutes while the machines re-boot…but what’s the big deal?

Do you think developers have ever written some really complex number crunching code and thought; “If I leave that running over night it’s going to make the CPU overheat, switch on the internal fan and melt the Polar ice caps?”

Why is green IT seen as the start of a new fashionable alternative to coal-powered mainframes and gas guzzling rack mounted server farms?

Since when has someone bought an IT solution so that you need to employ more people or take longer to perform a particular process?

“NEVER!”

IT is bought because it’s green.

Going green is in vogue. We need to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce the cost of making hardware, reduce the amount of electricity to power our servers, and reduce the number of machines you need to have switched on at any one time.

It’s highly scalable, a single box serves loads of concurrent users reducing the need for truckloads of machines, it works on low specification equipment, never needs to be re-booted.

Our software is an efficiency tool, making people get answers to questions quicker with less reliance on external staff. Our software is web based and produces many of its outputs on the screen reducing the need for boxes and boxes of paper and colour ink cartridges.

It’s browser based meaning people can access the same output from anywhere in the world reducing the need to travel and rack up unnecessary air miles. The software installs from a download so there is no packaging required…

To me, green IT is common sense. That’s why people buy IT and that’s why we all develop green software… can I have a grant now please?